Iran as Unlikely Ally

Transcription

Iran as Unlikely Ally
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NEW YORK, FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 2015
© 2015 The New York Times
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NEWS ANALYSIS
Iran as Unlikely Ally
A Traditional Foe of the U.S. Becomes
Pivotal in the Fight Against ISIS in Iraq
RALLYING CRY REVISITED
By HELENE COOPER
Police and Protesters See
Vindication After
U.S. Review
This article is by Jack Healy,
Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Vivian
Yee.
They were four words that became the national rallying cry of
a new civil rights movement:
“Hands up, don’t shoot.”
Protesters chanted it, arms
raised, in cities across the country in solidarity for Michael
Brown, the black teenager who
some witnesses said was surrendering when he was shot and
killed by a white police officer in
Ferguson, Mo.
The slogan was embraced by
members of Congress, recording
artists and football players with
the St. Louis Rams.
It inspired posters and songs,
T-shirts and new advocacy
groups, a powerful distillation of
simmering anger over police violence and racial injustice in Ferguson and beyond.
But in its final report this week
clearing the police officer, Darren
Wilson, of civil rights violations
in Mr. Brown’s death, the Justice
Department said it may not have
happened that way. Attorney
General Eric H. Holder Jr. cast
doubt on the “hands up” account
even as he described Ferguson as
having a racially biased police
department and justice system.
“It remains not only valid —
but essential — to question how
such a strong alternative version
of events was able to take hold so
swiftly, and be accepted so readily,” Mr. Holder said Wednesday.
For many, the answer to that
question was contained in a second Justice Department report
released on Wednesday that described in blistering detail how
Ferguson had used its police department and court system as
moneymaking ventures that disproportionately targeted AfricanContinued on Page A16
LARRY DONNELL, VIA REUTERS
A Few Yards From Disaster at La Guardia
A Delta jet skidded nearly into Flushing Bay after landing at La Guardia on Thursday. No one
was seriously hurt. Larry Donnell, a New York Giant on the flight, snapped this photo. Page A23.
Venture Capitalists Under Spotlight in Bias Suit
By DAVID STREITFELD
SAN FRANCISCO — Speak up
— but don’t talk too much. Light
up the room — but don’t overshadow others. Be confident and
critical — but not cocky or negative.
Ellen Pao got a lot of advice
about how to succeed in the clubby,
hypercompetitive,
overwhelmingly male world of venture capital. Her annual evaluations were filled with suggestions
about how she could improve and
perhaps even advance to the inner circle of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the blue-chip firm
where she was a junior partner.
She would be paid millions and
be at the red-hot center of the
A Silicon Valley Case
Points to a Dearth
of Female Leaders
crucible of the tech economy.
Ms. Pao did not make it. Exactly why is the subject of a lawsuit she filed against Kleiner,
which is now being heard in civil
court here. Ms. Pao contends she
was discriminated against. Kleiner says she failed to improve despite all that coaching and was
terminated.
The money she might win if
Kleiner is found liable is probably
trivial in a world where start-up
geniuses are worth billions. What
is really under examination in
this trial is the question of why
there are so few women in leadership positions in Silicon Valley.
At stake is any hope that the tech
world can claim to be a progressive place, or even a fair one.
The judge in the trial, which
opened on Feb. 23, is allowing the
jury to question the witnesses.
One anonymous member of the
jury put it well this week when he
or she asked the star witness,
John Doerr, perhaps the most famous and successful venture capitalist in the world and Ms. Pao’s
former boss, this question: Were
women simply not interested in
becoming venture capitalists, “or
did the venture capital world
Continued on Page B2
WASHINGTON — At a time
when President Obama is under
political pressure from congressional Republicans over negotiations to rein in Tehran’s nuclear
ambitions, a startling paradox
has emerged: Mr. Obama is becoming increasingly dependent
on Iranian fighters as he tries to
contain the Islamic State militant
group in Iraq and Syria without
committing American ground
troops.
In the four days since Iranian
troops joined 30,000 Iraqi forces
to try to wrest Saddam Hussein’s
hometown of Tikrit back from Islamic State control, American officials have said the United
States is not coordinating with
Iran, one of its fiercest global
foes, in the fight against a common enemy.
That may be technically true.
But American war planners have
been closely monitoring Iran’s
parallel war against the Islamic
State, also known as ISIS or ISIL,
through a range of channels, including conversations on radio
frequencies that each side knows
the other is monitoring. And the
two militaries frequently seek to
avoid conflict in their activities
by using Iraqi command centers
as an intermediary.
As a result, many national security experts say, Iran’s involvement is helping the Iraqis hold
the line against Islamic State advances until American military
advisers are finished training
Iraq’s underperforming armed
THAIER AL-SUDANI/REUTERS
A Shiite fighter in Salahuddin
Province in Iraq this week.
De Blasio and Builder Are Close,
Shepherd Through Era of Debt, Scandal and 9/11 But Not on Affordable Housing
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
parishes and a majestic seat at
St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan — Cardinal Egan was one
of America’s most visible Catholic leaders, invoking prayers for
justice when terrorists struck on
Sept. 11, 2001, and escorting Pope
Benedict XVI on his historic visit
to the city in April 2008.
A year later, the pope appointed Cardinal Dolan, who was the
archbishop of Milwaukee at the
time, to replace Cardinal Egan,
Continued on Page B14
INTERNATIONAL A4-14
NATIONAL A15-21
WEEKEND C1-30
A Void in Russia’s Opposition
3 Rings, No Elephants
Curb Your Hysteria
As Russians set
up memorials to
the opposition
figure Boris Y.
Nemtsov, left,
members of the
political opposition find themselves at a crossroads, uncertain about their role, stratPAGE A8
egy or alliances.
Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey
Circus will stop using elephants by 2018,
after decades of complaints. PAGE A15
In the deathbed comedy “Fish in the
Dark,” Larry David’s Broadway debut
as playwright
and actor, he
plays pret-ty,
pret-ty, pret-ty
much the same
social misfit beloved in “Curb
Your EnthusiPAGE C1
asm.”
An Ebola Milestone in Liberia
Liberia’s last Ebola patient has been
discharged, meaning its outbreak could
be declared over within weeks if no new
cases emerge among people being
tracked for possible exposure. PAGE A4
NEW YORK A23-27
Officials Defend Exxon Deal
The New Jersey governor’s office, under heavy criticism for accepting a $225
million settlement for environmental
damages that were estimated to cost billions, released further information on
PAGE A24
the agreement.
Reruns in the Cosmos
Astronomers say they have been watching the same star blow itself to smithereens again and again.
PAGE A3
Echoes of Old Biases
The student council’s sharp questioning
of a Jewish student has opened an uneasy debate at U.C.L.A.
PAGE A15
Militias at the Forefront
in the Fight for Tikrit
middle class.
Mr. Speyer is racing to start
work on an $875 million residential complex with three high-rises
and nearly 1,800 apartments in
Long Island City, Queens, a
neighborhood a short subway
ride from Manhattan. He must
begin the foundations by June 15
to qualify for a 15-year tax abatement worth about $200 million
under a tax program known as
421-a that is intended to stimulate
construction and generate affordable housing.
After mid-June, the program
expires or could be renewed with
regulations requiring developers
to include a higher concentration
of affordable housing. But under
current rules, Mr. Speyer is one
of six developers eligible for the
subsidy without having to build a
single low-cost unit, because of
Continued on Page A24
AWJA, Iraq — All along the
green irrigated plains in the
heart of what American occupying troops used to call the Sunni
triangle, lampposts and watchtowers are flying the flags of the
Badr Organization, a Shiite militia long hated and feared by
many Iraqi Sunnis.
The road from Baghdad to Tikrit is dotted with security checkpoints, many festooned with posters of Iran’s supreme leader and
other Shiite figures. They stretch
as far north as the village of
Awja, the birthplace of Saddam
Hussein, on the edge of Tikrit,
within sight of the hulking palaces of the former ruler who
ruthlessly crushed Shiite dissent.
More openly than ever before,
Iran’s powerful influence in Iraq
has been on display as the counteroffensive against Islamic State
militants around Tikrit has unfolded in recent days. At every
point, the Iranian-backed militias
have taken the lead in the fight
against the Islamic State here.
Senior Iranian leaders have been
openly helping direct the battle,
and American officials say Iran’s
Revolutionary Guards forces are
taking part.
Iraqi officials, too, have been
unapologetic about the role of the
militias. They project confidence
about their fighting abilities and
declare that how to fight the war
is Iraq’s decision, as militia leaders criticize American pressure
to rely more on regular forces.
On Thursday, as they showed
journalists around the outskirts
of the battle, leaders of militias
and regular forces alike declared
that there was no distinction beContinued on Page A14
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MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES
Cardinal Edward M. Egan in 2009, the year he stepped down
as the archbishop of New York after serving for nine years.
Unlike many of his more wary
real estate brethren, Rob Speyer
moved quickly to build a strong
relationship with New York’s liberal mayor, Bill de Blasio, after
his election in 2013.
The relationship flowered, and
Mr. Speyer, whose company
owns Rockefeller Center and operates on four continents, was a
host at Mayor de Blasio’s birthday party at Gracie Mansion last
May. At a real estate gathering
five months later, Mr. de Blasio
singled out Mr. Speyer, telling the
6,200 attendees that the developer was “tremendously civically
oriented.”
While enjoying a close relationship, however, the two men
do not seem to be on the same
page when it comes to the pressing need for affordable housing in
a city where rents are soaring beyond the grasp of the poor and
TEHRAN’S CLOUT
ON FULL DISPLAY
By ANNE BARNARD
CARDINAL EDWARD M. EGAN, 1932-2015
Cardinal Edward M. Egan, a
stern defender of Roman Catholic
orthodoxy who presided over the
Archdiocese of New York for nine
years in an era of troubled finances, changing demographics
and an aging, dwindling priesthood shaken by sexual-abuse
scandals, died on Thursday in
Manhattan. He was 82.
Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman
for the archdiocese, said the
cause was cardiac arrest.
Cardinal Egan’s successor,
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, said
in a statement that Cardinal
Egan “had a peaceful death,
passing away right after lunch”
in his home at the Chapel of the
Sacred Hearts of Jesus and
Mary. He was pronounced dead
at NYU Langone Medical Center.
As archbishop of New York
from 2000 to 2009 — spiritual
head of a realm of 2.7 million parishioners, an archipelago of 368
forces.
“The only way in which the
Obama administration can credibly stick with its strategy is by
implicitly assuming that the Iranians will carry most of the
weight and win the battles on the
ground,” said Vali R. Nasr, a former special adviser to Mr. Obama who is now dean of the School
of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
“You can’t have your cake and
eat it too — the U.S. strategy in
Iraq has been successful so far
largely because of Iran.”
It was Iran that organized
Iraq’s Shiite militias last August
to break a weeklong Islamic
State siege of Amerli, a cluster of
farming villages whose Shiite
residents faced possible slaughter. American bombs provided
support from warplanes.
Administration officials were
careful to note at the time that
the United States was working in
Amerli with its allies — namely
Iraqi Army units and Kurdish security forces. A senior administration official said that “any coContinued on Page A13
BUSINESS DAY B1-7
Nasdaq Is Back
FASHION A22
On the Paris Runways
Romance largely reigned in Paris collections filled with flirty dresses and sheer
shirts. But Paco
Rabanne took
another turn,
showing designs,
left, that evoked
the streets. Review by Vanessa
Friedman.
PAGE A22
The Nasdaq’s return to 5,000 evokes
memories of the dot-com bubble, but it’s
made up of more mature companies today, James Stewart writes.
PAGE B1
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A28-29
David Brooks
PAGE A29
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